When Wil was very young he wanted to learn to juggle. He had seen many people juggling before, and they all looked like they were having fun. So Wil rolled up some of his socks and started trying to learn. He even had a few friends who knew how to juggle, so he asked them how.
"First you have to buy some real juggling balls," one friend told him. Another friend told him "You have to learn to juggle more than three for it to be real juggling."
But Wil wasn't discouraged. He was having fun throwing his rolled-up socks at himself. His parents bought him a juggling book for his birthday one year.
This book told him that he had to learn juggling on his knees so he wouldn't chase the balls around as he threw them. But he only got sore knees, and that wasn't very fun.
The book also told him that he should practice juggling facing a wall so he wouldn't throw the balls too far away from himself. Doing this only made Wil's hands sore because he kept hitting the wall as he reached out to catch the balls, and that wasn't very fun either.
These things weren't much help to Wil at all, but the book did show him some useful things. It suggested that he start with smaller steps. This was much more fun. Instead of trying to juggle three balls at first, he learned a useful way to throw and catch one ball, then two and finally three.
Wil's friends still told him that he didn't do it the right way, and some of them wouldn't juggle with him. Others were happy to juggle with him even though he learned to juggle a different way. They were happy to do it because they saw that Wil was having fun, just like they were.
Wil hopes one day to learn to juggle with knives, torches and chainsaws, but right now he thinks those things are too dangerous for him. He is very glad he didn't think it was a good idea to start juggling with such dangerous things.
Questions for Discussion
1. Is there a right way to learn to juggle?
2. Are there dangerous ways to learn to juggle?
3. Can you learn to juggle without having fun?
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